Sunday, December 16, 2007

Every year I make homemade goodies to give as Christmas gifts. Previously, I have made an overabundance of cookies and candies. This year I decided to scale it down a bit and leave it to two. This year it is Snickerdoodle cookies and Bailey's Irish Cream truffles. The recipes came from a cooking message board that I frequent (Thanks katie102006!). Both turned out delicious, even though the truffles aren't as pretty as I thought they would be. The boxes I found with the candy stuff at Michael's and they turned out to be the perfect size :-)

This is one of the toughest cakes I have ever made. Mom was asked to make a cake for a very good friend's daughter. We had found the picture in a book and thought it looked easy enough. Looks can be deceiving. Due to some family issues, I had to make the cake. The base color of the cake is all airbrushed on and everything else is piped. The airbrushing was pretty rough because while wet, if touched even slightly, the color will come right off and leave a completely white spot. All in all, it turned out very cute.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

For our office Thanksgiving, I wanted to take another shot at the cupcakes. This time I made devils food cupcakes (half of them with marshmallow fluff filling) with white icing and orange and yellow sprinkles. Because of time constraints, I bought the tubs of icing from the grocery store. I wasn't completely satisfied with the consistency of this icing, but it worked for what I needed it for. This time the swirl turned out much better! After a long day at work, baking was just what I needed to calm down and forget my frustrations.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

This was my first attempt at decorating cupcakes without just slapping the frosting on so it took a few tries. For the bride to be's cupcakes, I did white icing with a little veil. They all had pretty sparkles on them too!

Monday, October 29, 2007

For the last class of course 3, we were to make a two-tiered wedding cake with 38 fondant roses, and 40 fondant leaves. While the roses are beautiful and not too difficult to make, they are VERY tedious and took Mom and I a total of 9 hours for us to each make our designated number of roses. While icing my cakes, I noticed that there was something wrong with the consistency of the buttercream icing. It wouldn't smooth over and it never hardened any like it's supposed to. Thirty minutes before time for me to leave for class, Mom suggested covering my cake in fondant when we got to class to make it look smooth. It worked! It really did end up looking like a wonderful wedding cake.

This past weekend was a tough one. I spent the weekend at Mom's and we made 14 layers of cake, 76 fondant roses, and 80 fondant leaves. For my niece Alexis' birthday, Mom and I decided we'd try something new and also use what we've learned in our past courses. We decided to make a two-tiered stacked cake. Hot pink and neon green were the birthday girl's choice of colors and it turned out adorable! Each tier is two layers and in total it stood about 10 in. high. We had a blast, but it was a challenge and we learned new things as we went. My favorite part was getting to take a hammer to the cake ;-) In order for the cake to be stable, we had to drive 5 wooden dowels through the cake.

Monday, October 15, 2007

Fondant may taste like crap, but it's beautiful on cakes and TONS of fun to work with!! Tonight in our cake class we learned how to work with and cover a cake with fondant. The first thing we did in class was cover our cake. While the fondant sat on the cake, we learned how to make a rose out of fondant. These roses are beautiful and WAY better than doing roses with buttercream frosting. After the rose we learned how to make the bow for our cake and then got to decorate. I love this cake and have always admired the way that fondant looks on cakes. However, it may be better to remove the fondant before eating the cake....there is buttercream frosting underneath it ;-)

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Today I got to start Course 3 of the Wilton cake classes. This is the course I have been waiting for because it focuses on fondant and tiered cakes. In Lesson 1 we basically just practiced more borders, garlands, and various other techniques with buttercream icing. The only one I got a picture of those was the ruffle garland. Next week we will be making a cake that looks like a present!

**P.S. - Mom and I have started a cake decorating business!!! (name of it to be revealed later) Right now we are taking orders for cakes for birthdays, showers, etc! (you name it, we can probably do it, lol) Let us know if you'd like to order a cake :-)

Monday, October 1, 2007

This is my last week at my current job, and lots of people asked me to make one last treat before I left. I saw this pumpkin roll on another blog (don't remember which one) and thought I would give it a try. It can actually be found on the back of the Libby's Pumpkin Puree can. This was a lot easier to make than it looks, and it turned out SO GOOD!!

BAKE for 13 to 15 minutes or until top of cake springs back when touched. (If using a dark-colored pan, begin checking for doneness at 11 minutes. Immediately loosen and turn cake onto prepared towel. Carefully peel off paper. Roll up cake and towel together, starting with narrow end. Cool on wire rack.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

And since I can't wait, I decided to make Pumpkin Bread :-) Fall is one of my favorite times of the year and I always look forward to all of the pumpkin flavored edibles. Starbucks just came out with their Pumpkin Latte and Pumpkin Frappacino and after having a couple of those in the past weeks, I decided that fall wasn't coming fast enough itself so I would try to force it in my own kitchen. This recipe was recommended to me by a friend at work and she assured me that it was easy enough to do considering I had never made ANY type of bread before. This recipe was actually pulled off of www.allrecipes.com

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour three 7x3 inch loaf pans. (Mine only made two, but I have bigger loaf pans.)

- In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water and sugar until well blended. In a seperate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger. Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended. Pour into the prepared loaf pans.

- Bake for about 50 minutes in the preheated oven. Loaves are done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Monday, September 17, 2007

After having a week off of class, I was ready to go back and learn new things! For this class we had to have royal icing instead of buttercream icing. Royal icing is much easier to make than buttercream and also much easier to clean up! This week we learned how to also work with color flow icing. This turns hard like candy but keeps a shiny, puffy look to it. For our flowers this week we did apple blossoms, violet leaves and violets.

Here is what it looks like with all of my stuff spread out in class:

Here are my color flow birds (mine are the ones on the top left, mom's are on the bottom right):

Monday, September 3, 2007

Tonight I started Course 2 of the Wilton Cake Decorating class. This time around, we only have to make one cake and not until the last class (which makes things tons easier for me) but we still have to make all of the icing. For this class we focused on learning two flowers: the rosebud and the chrysanthemum. The rosebud wasn't too bad but the mum was a real pain. By the way, the picture of the cake on the box is the cake we will be making in our final class for this course...

Monday, August 27, 2007

So, for our final cake of Level 1 Wilton Cake Decorating, we had to FINALLY finish the famous Wilton Rose. This rose has been taunting me for weeks and actually had me a little worried. I've wanted so badly to do well at this, that I thought that this would be my failure. This class was a lot of fun and after finally finishing a rose, I felt a great feeling of accomplishment :-) I LOVE the way this cake turned out! My teacher even told me I should consider being an instructor after finishing all of the levels!!

A few people have asked me what I do with all of these cakes after I decorate them. Most of them get taken to work and one of them has stayed at home for Blake. After playing with buttercream icing for hours on end, I have no desire to eat any of these cakes. Now, if only I could apply this principle to chocolate, pasta, etc...

On to the pics!

This was the first time I've iced a cake with ABSOLUTELY NO CRUMBS in the icing!!

Sunday, August 26, 2007

So my first "Kitchen" show is in September and the host and I decided on this brownie recipe. It comes from the Fall/Winter 2007 Pampered Chef Season's Best cookbook. I was told that before the show, I would need to practice the recipe 2 or 3 times so that when the time comes, I know what the heck I'm talking about. After running through the recipe once, I realised I might have to do this all 3 times. It's an easy recipe, but when you're trying to explain what you're doing and explain the products and do a new recipe, things tend to get mixed up and a little difficult. Regardless, I made it through the recipe and these brownies are like HEAVEN!!! Sweet, salty, chocolate, caramel....mmmmmmm...............(pardon the bad lighting for the pics...)

Monday, August 13, 2007

I LOVE THIS CLASS!!! Mom and I had a blast and we got a really cute cake out of it. That's right, I made the cake, filled it, iced it and then decorated it. The thing I have a little trouble with is writing, but I think I've mastered the little stars.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Mom and I signed up for the Wilton Cake Decorating class at Michael's. For our first class we basically just watched the instructor while she showed us how to make the cake and icing. She also showed us how to properly ice a cake. For our homework for class two, we had to have a two-layer cake iced and ready to be decorated along with 8 different types and colors of icing in Tupperware so that we can use that for practicing and the decorating. Here is my cake iced and ready to go:

Sunday, August 5, 2007

I was walking through the grocery store feeling a little bit frustrated because I had forgotten to pick out a new recipe to try this week so I picked up a package of Baker's Coconut and looked on the back. Low and behold, my recipe for this week! They turned out great!

Saturday, August 4, 2007

Well, I finally did it. I have become an Independent Consultant with The Pampered Chef! A lot of people so far have said, "It was only a matter of time." And they were right. Today I got my kit in the mail (3 days early!) and while sitting in the middle of the living room, excitedly unpacking everything, I know I must have looked like a 9 year old child on Christmas morning (except with knives, pans, and lots of kitchen goodies). Here is everything I got in my kit minus the large black carrying tote I received to carry everything in:

Monday, July 23, 2007

One of my favorite kinds of cakes is Angel Food Cake so I thought I would attempt to make what I thought would be one of the more difficult recipes. In the end, it was pretty easy and turned out GREAT! Way better than the store bought and to top it off, I even made my own whipped cream! Even easier and tastes WAY better!!! Just call me Betty Crocker ;-) This recipe and the recipe for the whipped cream are from the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook, Bridal Edition.

1. In a very large mixing bowl allow egg whites to stand at room temperature for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, sift powdered sugar and flour together three times; set aside.

2. Add cream of tartar and vanilla to egg whites. Beat with an elecric mixer on medium speed until soft peaks form (tips curl). Gradually add granulated sugar, about 2 tablespoons at a time, beating until stiff peaks form (tips stand straight).

Meredith and I threw a baby shower for a friend of ours from work. With a blue and green theme and a need for some more sweets, I figured these cookies would be perfect. Who doesn't love sugar cookies?! This recipe was taken from a blog of a fellow "Nestie" (www.thenest.com) and also from the "Now That's What's Cooking" blog.

-In large mixing bowl beat butter with an electric mixeer on low to medium speed about 30 seconds. Add sugar and vanilla; beat until fluffy. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating on low to medium speed 1 minute after each addition and scraping bowl frequently. Alternately add flour mixture and buttermilk to butter mixture, beating on low speed after each addition just until combined. Reserve 2 cups batter. Pour remaining batter into prepared pan.

-In a small mixing bowl combine chocolate syrup and reserved 2 cups batter. Beat on low speed until well combined. Pour chocolate batter over vanilla batter in pan. Do not mix!

Monday, June 25, 2007

I have officially made my very first cake completely from scratch. No boxed mixes and no icings from a store bought tub. My first cake choice? Red velvet with cream cheese icing. At first I thought this might be quite the difficult choice for my first cake, but with the help of my husband, this was a piece of cake ;-) As a matter of fact, it turned out so moist that I had a hard time icing it! This recipe was compliments of my "Joy of Cooking" cookbook that was a Christmas present from my mom.

Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Icing:

Preheat the oven to 350. Have all ingredients at room temperature, about 70 degrees. Grease and flour two 9x2-inch or 8x2-inch round cake pans or line the bottoms with wax or parchment paper.

Whisk together until thoroughly blended:

2 1/2 cups sifted cake flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder

Beat in a large bowl until creamy:

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter

Gradually add and beat on high speed until light and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes:

Add 1 to 3 tablespoons of red food coloring with the first addition of buttermilk.

Beat until smooth and scrape the sides of the bowl as necessary. Divide the batter between the pans and spread evenly. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 25-30 minutes in 9-inch pan, 30-35 minutes in 8-inch pan. Cool completely and remove from pans. Fill and frost with double recipe of Cream Cheese Frosting. Sprinkle with shredded sweetened coconut.

Cream Cheese Frosting (use double recipe for this cake)

Beat in a medium bowl of electric mixer at low speed just until blended:

8 ounces cold cream cheese

5 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened (optional)

2 teaspoons vanilla

Add one-third at a time and beat just until smooth and the desired consistency:

1 pound (4 cups) confectioners' sugar, sifted

If the frosting is too stiff, beat for a few seconds longer, do not overbeat.